I’ll content myself this time with simply mentioning that it took me 22 minutes on the dot, rather than trying to hazard a difficulty level. I submitted with a certain amount of trepidation, because 2 of the down clues along the top line had rather tentative parsing of the wordplay caused by uncertainty over which end was which. There did seem to be an awful lot of the conventional single letter abbreviations to enter, and three instances where you had the words’ outside letters only to play with. I did manage to pass the spelling test of three of the long ones without having to cross fingers. Pleasing to complete solving with no errors.
Definitions underlined in italics, [deleted letters] shown thus, and other explanations should be clear enough.
| Across | |
| 1 | Best to snub leader with lively goal for education (8) |
| LITERACY – The best in a group are the ELITE. Take off the leader, and add RACY for lively. | |
| 5 | Group participating in Monopoly react badly, beginning to lose (6) |
| CARTEL – An anagram (badly) of REACT with the first letter of L[ose] | |
| 9 | Whiskery swimmers ignoring large headlands, or views from them? (9) |
| SEASCAPES – Them referring back to headlands. Whiskery swimmers may well be SEALS. Ignore the L[arge] and add CAPES for headlands. | |
| 11 | Very cool beer drained and knocked back is bitter (5) |
| ACERB – I think I can translate very cool to ACE. BEER drained leaves you with just the B and the R, to be reversed or knocked back. | |
| 12 | Perhaps old Dutch gold rings right for dabbler (7) |
| AMATEUR – “There ain’t a woman living in this world as I swap for my dear old Dutch”. Cockney rhyming slang, Dutch equals MATE. Surround it with AU for gold, add R[ight] | |
| 13 | Country’s empty housing area (7) |
| HUNGARY – Empty is, of course HUNGRY, insert an A[rea] | |
| 14 | Alexander not finishing small pastries after suit bursts (4,3,6) |
| FITS AND STARTS – Alexander, particularly if Scottish, is SANDY. Knock off the end, add S[mall] pastry TARTS, and preface with FIT for suit. “It fits the bill”. | |
| 16 | Divers with no clue, aimless at sea (13) |
| MISCELLANEOUS – Pronounced diverse. And an anagram (at sea) of NO CLUE AIMLESS | |
| 20 | Chap unlikely to stay confined in hotel in France agreed to stifle noise (7) |
| HOUDINI – Harry, the famous escapologist. H[otel], then agreed in France is OUI, which surrounds DIN for noise. | |
| 21 | Someone who lets engaging European enlist again (2-5) |
| RE-ENTER – Someone who lets: RENTER, insert E[uropean] | |
| 23 | Maybe remove dust from behind Saint Nick (5) |
| SWIPE – WIPE could certainly mean remove dust from, place it behind S[aint]. I was nervous about this, nearly making SHINE work. | |
| 24 | Abundant amusement in vacant shed Kitty used for nefarious purposes (5,4) |
| SLUSH FUND – Abundant: LUSH, amusement: FUN. As with drained beer in 11, vacant shed gives SD to surround the two. Kitty here is a cash sum, not a food item in Springfield. | |
| 25 | Picks out large pants, saving time (6) |
| SIGHTS – I think large pants are supposed to be SIGHS, into which you insert T[ime]. For once, pants doesn’t suggest an anagram. Hooray! | |
| 26 | Muscle shown by East End bully punching friend (8) |
| PECTORAL – To bully is to hector, in the aitch resistant East End ‘ECTOR. Punching is the inclusion indicator, so put ECTOR in your friend PAL. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Girl wanting second vehicle for sailor from the east (6) |
| LASCAR – “An Oriental (orig Indian) sailor” – Chambers. Girl is LASS, but without the S[econd]. Vehicle is, of course, CAR. | |
| 2 | I comment when leaving stores for headgear (5) |
| TIARA – Took me an anxious while to sort out the Yodaspeak. TARA is comment when leaving, which stores I. | |
| 3 | Most Croesus-like king, one hoarder of treasure? (7) |
| RICHEST – Croesus is the legendary 6th century BCE King of Lydia, the Elon Musk of his day. R[ex] for king, plus I (one) plus CHEST for hoarder of treasure. | |
| 4 | Birds caught with trouble are located among larks (13) |
| CAPERCAILLIES – C[aught] with AIL for trouble and LIE for are located, all contained withing CAPERS for larks, as in high jinks. | |
| 6 | V sign America’s leader deployed at borders (7) |
| AGAINST – As in Spurs V Coventry (sorry Coventry!). An anagram (deployed) of SIGN plus A[merica’s] leader, with AT at the borders. | |
| 7 | Ambassador’s absorbed by sign one will offer alternative terms (9) |
| THESAURUS – Ambassador’s gives H[is] E[xcellency]’S (keep the ‘S). Surround with TAURUS, one of the 12 signs of the Zodiac. | |
| 8 | Influencer is TikTok’s first to follow Chuck Berry’s cover (8) |
| LOBBYIST – IS plus the first letter of T[ikTok] follows LOB for Chuck (with a small C) and BY for the cover of B[err]Y | |
| 10 | Need cash when tailored clothes shrink — it’s a nasty feeling (13) |
| SCHADENFREUDE – I will own that schadenfreude can be a very pleasant feeling! An anagram (tailored) of NEED CASH surrounding the archetypal “shrink” FREUD. | |
| 14 | Cracking shooting jackets South American returned (9) |
| FISSURING – Shooting is FIRING, which encloses (Jackets) S[outh] plus US for American returned. | |
| 15 | The person setting up stage show initially stresses (8) |
| EMPHASES – The person setting is ME (if you see what I mean) which is up, meaning reversed. PHASE stands in for stage, and the S from the initial letter of S[how] completes. | |
| 17 | Glaring, upset detective overwhelmed by incident (7) |
| EVIDENT – Our detective, a DI, is upset to be reversed, and surrounded by EVENT for incident. | |
| 18 | Wham too forcefully finished popular song? (7) |
| OVERHIT – Finished: OVER, popular song: HIT. | |
| 19 | Free book prefaces with a line of The Woman in White? (6) |
| BRIDAL – RID for free, prefaced by B[ook], concluded with A L[ine] | |
| 22 | Ex-president saving man I’m not sure is more faithful (5) |
| TRUER – Harry S Truman, POTUS 33, loses the man and becomes TRU. Follow with ER for I’m not sure. | |
SWIPE and SIGHTS were two that came rather late for me, but AGAINST was POI, with the definition seeming particularly brilliant, and CAPERCAILLIES LOI, with the LIE part taking longest to parse after I spotted the bird.
3 minutes short of an hour for what I did, but this was a DNF as I was unable to solve AGAINST and SCHADENFREUDE . Surely the whole point of the latter is that it’s enjoyment of other’s misfortune, so not a nasty feeling for the person experiencing it? But maybe the setter is saying it’s a nasty feeling for a person to have, which perhaps needn’t apply in every circumstance.
I had no idea what was going on re Dutch in AMATEUR.
32 minutes, with a modicum of head-scratching. Helpful to know the bird.
1987 Cup Final? Coventry fans still glory in that.
14:42 and no SCHADENFREUDE felt towards Coventry. It was a cruel loss for them last night against a Spurs team who were awful for much of the game.
Indeed I believe I was fortunate not to see any of it!
Very tough I thought. 58 mins but at least I finished today. Last 2 in AMATEUR & AGAINST. Can’t say I really enjoyed it though with so many put-in’s, take-outs move this, lose that etc.
I liked MISCELLANEOUS.
Thanks Z and setter.
14’25”, no issues. POI was HUNGARY, bizarrely as I’m in Budapest waiting to travel home. AGAINST was LOI, clever clue, ninja turtled by thinking first, sadly, of the president before last.
Thanks Z and setter.
I took 34:46 of which that last 5-10 minutes, I’m not sure exactly but it was driving me mad, were spent on 6dn. When I finally got what the v was, I was too tired to work the clue out properly so just came here to have it explained.
Thanks setter and blogger
I thought several of these, including SCHADENFREUDE, MISCELLANEOUS, FITS AND STARTS and that hitherto unknown bird, were very much at the higher end of the setters’ craft. There was a lot of complicated but ultimately rewarding wordplay throughout and I felt a nice sense of quiet achievement to get it all done (albeit with a couple of check function confirmations, that bird was a hold-out) in 32.45. FOI CARTEL, LOsI HOUDINI and the bird. Thanks Z, I never properly figured out AGAINST and AMATEUR.
From Nettie Moore:
The bright spark of the steady lights
Has dimmed my SIGHTS
When you’re around all my grief gives way
A lifetime with you is like some heavenly day
12:09. Moderately tricky today, very enjoyable in spite of mild irritation at the nonsensical definition at 5ac.
Merriam-Webster for CARTEL: “a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices.” Sounds like a monopoly to me! (And here’s hoping Lina Kahn remains as US Federal Trade Commission chair…}
A monopoly is a market controlled by a single firm. The prefix ‘mono’ is a bit of a giveaway!
Or a single cartel?
A single cartel is not, by definition, a monopoly!
By a single entity. Such as a cartel?
No. A cartel is by definition an arrangement in which multiple firms cooperate.
But a cartel is one entity. So can be monopolistic, surely? The Collins definition includes the word “monopolise (well, monopolize):”
“a collusive international association of independent enterprises formed to monopolize production and distribution of a product or service, control prices, etc.”
No it really can’t. The number of firms involved is intrinsic to the definition in each case.
I don’t see that a monopoly has to be control by a single FIRM. As others suggest above, the controlling entity could be a group of cooperating firms.
That’s not a monopoly, it’s a cartel. These are just fundamentally different things.
Respectfully, I’d suggest learning some Greek.
Wiktionary has 5 defs; here is the first:
“Noun, monopoly (plural monopolies)
1) A situation, by legal privilege or other agreement, in which solely one party (company, cartel etc.) exclusively provides a particular product or service, dominating that market and generally exerting powerful control over it.”
Mark you one source does not a summer make….
Fine but may I equally respectfully suggest that that might assist with etymology – though not in this case, as monopoly derives from Latin, and cartel also from Latin, via French – but less so with regard to 21st century usage.
Herein the nub of the problem, perhaps.
My own view is that if you view a cartel as a single entity, that cartel can exercise a monopoly, usually in fact the point of joining one. You are very welcome to a different view.
You are of course completely right about etymology and modern usage.
Practically speaking though being part of a cartel does not generally result in the existence of a monopoly. Cartel members will do various things to limit competition: fixing prices is the obvious one but people might also agree not to compete too hard for business in certain markets, or with certain customers. But there are always still multiple suppliers in the market and customers will still have a choice. And very often there will be participants who are not part of the cartel.
A bit late in the day, but on reflection I think Keriothe is correct.
Cartels may sometimes behave monopolistically, but they are not monopolies as such. As Keriothe says, they are quite different things – collusion to control prices in product X is distinct from being the sole market provider of X. The meanings of ‘cartel’ and ‘monopoly’ are probably not quite close enough to justify the clue.
And the clue only defines a cartel as something “participating in monopoly.” There’s no monopoly-as-a-group indicated. “Monopoly” by itself does not defined CARTEL in this clue.
Monopoly is Greek (the Latin word derives therefrom). A monopoly most definitely can constitute sole (even though collective, as in a cartel) CONTROL of a MARKET (applying the original meaning).
Strange how some people here, though actually ignorant of a word’s origins and various meanings, insist on making fools of themselves by trying to show off by logic-chopping, when there are examples in almost every crossword of words which actually do bend the term “definition (i.e. technically they are actually EXAMPLES)”!
“Monopoly” is not even the definition of CARTEL here. The definition is “Group participating in [m]onopoly.”
Gentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.
I see a woman may be made a fool
If she had not a spirit to resist.
(Taming of the Shrew, Act 3 Scene 2)
35 mins pre-brekker. A bit chewy in parts, but I liked it, mostly the East End bully and Chuck Berry’s cover.
Ta setter and Z.
41 minutes with LOI LITERACY. COD to SCHADENFREUDE. I haven’s said TARA for many a long year. I must start again as part of the degentrification programme you’re permitted in old age. A tricky puzzle, this one. Thank you Z and setter.
I’ve never even heard it said, except by Our Cilla ..
Straightforward today, no queries, no unknowns but as mentioned, some excellent clues I thought.. and some very easy ones.
I worked at a bank many years ago where Harry Houdini had been in account. We had various notes of interviews and documents with his signature on. He was never particularly wealthy, at least not in England …
16:56, a brilliant puzzle I thought. Various points at which I felt at risk of grinding to a halt, but it never quite happened.
A cartel seems more likely to be an oligopoly than a monopoly, although I didn’t blink while solving.
Thanks both.
A cartel is an oligopoly in which the market participants cooperate, to fix prices for instance.
Yes, that was my point!
Sorry didn’t mean to contradict you! The cooperation point is kind of relevant here because a monopolist can’t really cooperate with itself!
17.15
Bit of a one-trick puzzle, with the apparent nouns “rings”, “housing”, “stores”, “clothes” and “jackets” all turning our to be verbs indicating enclosures.
COD AGAINST
LOI SWIPE
Carelessly biffed EMPHASiS. 11:18 with the error, COD HOUDINI.
55m 24s so, as on may occasions, My time and Jack’s time are pretty close.
Thanks, Zabadak, for TIARA, AMATEUR and AGAINST.
Like some others I don’t think of SCHADENFREUDE as a nasty feeling.
I think the nastiness comes from the moral judgment involved. Sure we enjoy the feeling as our rival has failed but our upbringing or conscience tells us we shouldn’t be taking pleasure from this. Hence the term “a guilty pleasure”.
31:57
I thought this was excellent with some very witty cluing, particularly LOBBYIST and my last two, LITERACY and AGAINST. First time I’ve seen ACERB without IC at the end.
Hadn’t noticed the “one-trick” until it was mentioned above. I suppose it does make them easier to spot.
Thanks to Zabadak and the setter.
28:08
Very much enjoyed – had been pootling along slowly on the RHS until around the twenty minute mark, at which point the longer answers in the middle all fell into place in quick succession, followed by the rest of the NW in double-quick time. Finally left with the SW corner – took HOUDINI to break the deadlock, followed by EMPHASES, EVIDENT, FISSURING, SWIPE and SIGHTS in that order.
Thanks for the as-usual-entertaining blog Z, and for the grid, setter.
Amazed anyone found this straightforward. I got there in a wheezy 52 mins, but with lots of difficulty. No idea what was going on with TIARA and SIGHTS, so thanks for the explanation. Was relieved and pleased to finish at all.
Time off the scale – 110 mins.
However, I completed it. I found against impenetrable, as I forgot to consider versus, and entered the answer with a shrug as it was all I could think of that fitted. Same with tiara: couldn’t parse it, but in it went. Got away with it.
Thanks, Z.
From LASCAR to THESAURUS in 28:10 with lots of FITS AND STARTS on the way. POI, AGAINST took ages! I have a CD by a band called CAPERCAILLE. Liked FISSURING and SLUSH FUND. Had TRUMP briefly(shudder) until I read the clue properly. Correcting that helped to get my PECTORAL in shape. Thanks setter and Z.
DNF, 15d EmphasIs. I NHO emphase, which I gather means emphasis. Didn’t bother to read plural “stresses” in clue, giving emphasEs. Both emphase and emphases were absent from Cheating Machine, now added.
This was a biff-fest, but caught out, deservedly, by 15d. I thought many of the clues were either impenetrable or weird.
Hi Andy, I think the plural of the noun emphasis is emphases (rather than emphasises); one emphasis, two emphases. It’s a bit like thesis/theses. You’re right; there were some twisty clues in this one 🙂
Thanks harmonic_row. Yes, I discovered the plural of emphasis is emphases, which surprised me a bit. My Cheating Machine was originally nicked from a dictionary which had few if any plurals so I have been adding them over the years.
Emphases is the plural of both emphase (a rare word), and emphasis, as you say. I’m guessing they are pronounced differently.
I am uncertain why emphases wasn’t in, as it is irregular, so I would expect it spelled out in full.
Like a couple of others, I biffed EMPHASIS, not really understanding what was going on. Same for other parts of the puzzle – TARA in TIARA (even though having worked in Birmingham many years ago, I was used to hearing “tara a bit” for goodbye), V for versus etc etc.
DNF
Needed the blog to understand many of the parsings today, especially the yoda clue for tiara! I probably managed around two-thirds before peeking at the blog to marvel at the rest. Thanks Z. Above my current ability level but lots of learning. Enjoyed the back and forth re CARTEL. Many thanks all.
I found this the toughest puzzle for a while, 12m 11s. Might have been quicker for those who have heard of CAPERCAILLIES, which was my LOI once the checkers made it the only plausible answer.
LOBBYIST was very nice. I hadn’t considered a SLUSH FUND to be nefarious – Chambers says it is ‘usually’ – and it is making me rethink a few conversations.
27 mins. Usually when I see South American I assume it’s USS or similar, but somehow I forgot that on this occasion and was left floundering. SWIPE needed an alphabet trawl which I hate, so add a couple of minutes because I cheated….
34:05 – much delayed by trying to parse AGAINST and TIARA and looking for an alternative to shine, which I finally found just before stopping the clock.
Fortunately for me, Capercaillie is a Scottish folk group, so the only problem was remembering the spelling. My biggest issue was the correct spelling of schadenfreude, since the first two vowels are unchecked, but my answer turned out correct. I did carefully parse every clue, except for my LOI, tiara – that’s got to be it!
Time: 31 minutes
nice to hear of the Scottish folk group . I have known the accordionist all my life!
DNF, defeated by CAPERCAILLIES – I didn’t know it, and I didn’t see ‘are located’=’lie’, so even though I thought of that word at one point I didn’t put it in.
No other major problems, though I took a long time to remember LASCAR and to think of ‘elite’ for ‘best’ to get LITERACY.
Thanks Zabadak and setter.
COD Slush fund
30’2″
Smartly away, kept up a good gallop, stayed on gamely.
I feel like a eleven year old handicapper that’s inexplicably got placed in the Lincoln.
It must be the thirty odd years of plugging away that meant nothing held me up with this one. I was impressed by the care the setter has taken with the surfaces here.
Many thanks to Zabadak and the setter; you’ve cheered me up no end.
Defeated in the SW by EMPHASES and SWIPE.
Tricky insertion clues and AGAINST very elegant.
A bit above my pay grade.
Well beaten today, although I did get CAPERCAILLIES. Some great clues, but too good for me,
Struggled to get my last two: AGAINST and EMPHASES.
Otherwise not too troubled by anything.
Off to the dentist now. That’s troubling.
David
26.54 with a failed to parse TIARA, and a couple of did not bother to parses (should there be an apostrophe in there? – this would be the right place to ask)
As with the QC, I struggled in the sw corner. No time to report as it was completed in three stages either side of lunch, but I’m almost certain it was above sixty minutes. My final two were SWIPE and FISSURING, and it took me some time to finish these two. I did at least parse everything as I went, and was confident for once that all answers were correct. This isn’t always the case for me on a tough puzzle, so as far as I am concerned this puzzle was spot on. Very enjoyable, well done setter!
One of those days where nothing comes to mind and when it did I could not believe I did not see it in an instant. Except 14down which just seems weird to me.
Just my sort of puzzle, quite challenging, but steady if not pacy progress.
COD to miscellaneous for the very smooth surface.
34.08, but I didn’t stick at it as, frankly, I found it rather tedious.
The setter’s art is greatly helped by the convention in English of the particle-free relative. When you can dispense with who, what, that etc, it opens the way to all sorts of devious surfaces. 19’36”. Very much liked the Chuck Berry clue.
This felt like one of those intricate Swiss watches with lots of interlocking gears and wheels – and with a couple of the gears missing a cog here and there (no first or last letter) so as to properly align 30 an 31 day months or leap years.
FWIW, I’m with keriothe – “a” monopoly is one company; a group which exercises monopoly power (different to being “a” monopoly) is a cartel.
And that’s the definition in the clue: “participating in [m]onopoly.”
And that’s the point. You can’t participate in “a” monopoly because “a” monopoly by definition is one party, and there are no subdivisions. Monopoly power is different thing. It is the economic influence which either a monopolist OR a cartel exercises, and in that useage monopoly is an adjective, not a noun.
As you say, a cartel may participate in monopoly, the latter defined as “exclusive control of the market supply of a product or service” (Collins), without being itself “a monopoly” (that’s another definition). The clue doesn’t define a CARTEL as “a monopoly,” so it’s fine.
DNF but only defeated by AGAINST. Enjoyed it. Thanks for the blog.
Got there in the end, with LOI AGAINST when I finally realized what the V meant and also realized that the word might end in 3 consonants. As others have noted, a bit too many words enclosed in others and indicated very indirectly.
Quite good, but very hard, taking me pretty much exactly an hour. I did, eventually, manage to understand and parse everything except AGAINST (didn’t see the anagram of SIGN in it), but there were many other very resistant clues (like MISCELLANEOUS). And CAPERCAILLIES really needed the wordplay to have me spell it correctly. What I really liked: this was hard, but there was nothing impossibly obscure or unfair in it — my kind of puzzle.
I thought this was very nice, lots of rather convoluted clues but many of them quite clever and everything sound so far as I could see. Was out all day so finished it and posted late. 51 minutes.
It would be interesting to see what Oliver Kamm has to say on the monopoly-cartel matter. I’m not going to comment one way or the other except to say that my understanding of a cartel has been confirmed and enhanced.
I loved this puzzle! Perfect mix of challenging but entertaining clues. Thank you setter!